Walk-Ins Welcome with Bridget Phetasy

Tim Urban, writer/illustrator and co-founder of Wait But Why , a long-form, stick-figure-illustrated website, sits down with Bridget to discuss his new book What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies . In a fun and free-wheeling conversation they talk about Tim's decision to write the book because the defining characteristic of our time is mass confusion and smart people falling...

Jena Friedman, comic and author of new book Not Funny: Essays On Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera , has a frank conversation with Bridget about motherhood, parenting, and losing her mom while she was pregnant with her son. They cover the perils of turning to the internet for advice on sleep training, what gets you through grief and a staggering loss, the writer's strike, the middle class stru...

Kat Timpf, co-host of Gutfeld! and author of You Can't Joke About That , sits down with Bridget to discuss writing a book about some of her most intimate, traumatic, and gut wrenching experiences. They talk about the importance of being able to joke about your own trauma, why humor is healing and we have to be allowed to joke about everything, people who try to police your grief, how grief is...

Comedian and Dumpster Fire writer Dave Yates, sits down with Bridget for a long overdue conversation about comedy, addiction, sobriety, and making peace with a brain that is mean to you. They cover Dave's entrance into comedy when he quit drinking because he needed something to keep him busy, why the worst thing that can happen to you is doing well the first time you do stand up, how he stopp...

Mediated Series - Part 6: Published in 2005, Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live In It , became Bridget's bible for understanding the changing media landscape and how it is affecting our society and behavior. Now she sits down with author Thomas de Zengotita for a multi-part series discussing the book chapter by chapter.  In Part 6, Bridget and Thomas discuss the im...

Independent journalist, Leighton Woodhouse, sits down with Bridget for an in-depth conversation about the Censorship Industrial Complex, which is an effort to create new gatekeepers so that the elite can regain control of the media narrative by controlling visibility into the distribution of information and throttling the ability to see politically inconvenient information. They discuss the differ...

Bridget sits down with Polish-born artist, Agnieszka Pilat, who is best known for her series of heroic portraits of technology and for paintings co-created with a quadruped robot, Spot. They discuss Agnieszka's experience going from Communist Poland to non-Communist Poland, the true realities of toilet paper shortages, why you would never make casual conversation in Poland, the spirit of bene...

Garand Thumb Youtuber, Mike Jones, sits down with Bridget for a frank conversation about gun culture and all the factors that go into the gun debate, his time in the military as a SERE specialist, the complex topic of school shootings, their mutual love of America, and why social media plus AI might be the end of us. They also cover the importance of vulnerability among men - not just with their f...

Andrew Doyle returns to discuss his latest book The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World . Andrew wrote the book for people who are confused by what's going on in the culture right now. He and Bridget have a riveting conversation about what actually happened during the Salem witch trials and how it can be applied to today's culture--how you might no...

Steve Krakauer is the author of Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy With Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People . He and Bridget sit down for a discussion about what's changed in the media landscape in the past 10 years, Trump’s ability to harness the power of Twitter, how the major news outlets became subject to audience capture, laziness and incompetence in journalism, and why s...

Siddharth Kara, author, researcher, and activist on modern slavery sits down with Bridget to discuss the harsh reality of cobalt mining and the fact that the technological world is built using modern day slaves. In a powerful and important conversation Siddharth explains how people like you and I cannot function in the world for 24 hours without participating in enormous violence and destruction i...

Writer and podcaster Brad Polumbo drops in to discuss his evolution into a content creator, the medium through which he's discovered people his age consume political content, and why Gen Z doesn't care about privacy. They talk about how ultimately the media is holding up a mirror and reflecting back to the public what they’re demanding, being caught between two extreme social positions,...

Writer Rob Henderson sits down with Bridget to discuss Luxury Beliefs, what they are, why they disproportionately effect the lower classes, and why people who wield economic, social and cultural power are espousing public beliefs that they often don’t adhere to in their own lives but seem very pleased with nonetheless. They discuss Rob's journey from foster care, to the military, to Yale, and...

Author Mary Harrington sits down to discuss her new book Feminism Against Progress . She and Bridget discuss how it’s always taken for granted that progress is a good thing, but in order to view it that way you need to narrow your focus and ignore everything that doesn’t fit into the narrative, and the disturbing fact that slavery exists today and it’s never been more profitable. They cover Critic...

Podcast host and journalist Josh Szeps sits down with Bridget for a conversation about the appeal of the rabbit holes that normal, intelligent people seem to find themselves falling down, the conspiracy theories that bring them there, the loss of faith in the media and our institutions, and why uncertainty can be a good thing. They also cover parenthood and being an "older" parent, wheth...

Stand-up comic Ian Lara stops in to talk about the ups and downs of his career in stand-up comedy, how he veered from a political science & engineering background and pre-law trajectory into stand-up, and how his parents who immigrated from the Dominican Republic reacted to the change. They talk about his favorite parts of being on the road, competition among comedians, the delicate dance of n...

Fred Mwangaguhunga, founder of urban celebrity news site, Media Takeout , sits down for a conversation about entrepreneurship, the three businesses he's started, what he learned from each of them, and why you should always see your mistakes as an opportunity to learn. He and Bridget talk about parenthood and what it's like as the father of triplets, why families need more support than th...

Wilfred Reilly, professor & author, sits down with Bridget for a fascinating conversation about the disconnect between what people in upper middle class America believe and reality, the power of victimization, and racial dynamics in the US. They cover the true stats on police killing unarmed civilians, interracial crimes, the politicization of Covid and the vaccines, and people in leadership m...

Bridget sits down with comic Byron Bowers for a wide ranging conversation that covers his entry into standup, his burgeoning acting career, and their shared experience of being raised by someone with mental illness. They discuss separating the message from the messenger, transhumanism, homelessness, evolving past being carbon-based life forms, spirituality & religion, trusting your gut and the...

Michael Shermer stops in to talk about his new book Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational . He and Bridget discuss trying to diffuse the pejorative nature of the word “conspiracy”, the difference between a hypothesis and a conspiracy, why a lot of conspiracy theories turn out to be true, the eroded trust in our institutions, and why we still have to maintain some of that trust or we...

Katherine Dee, writer and internet historian, sits down with Bridget to discuss the strange corners of the internet she's explored and how she manages to predict coming trends in our culture. They talk about internet culture & internet history, whether you can really tell who someone is via Twitter, drunk Tweeting, the definition of a lolcow, feedback loops, the coming wave of sexual nega...

Comedian Phil Hanley drops in to talk about his new stand up special Oh La La . He and Bridget discuss what it was like for him growing up with undiagnosed dyslexia, the challenges but also the gifts of dyslexia, the book he is writing about it, and the most important thing he thinks parents should know about raising a child who is dyslexic. They talk about the failures of the school system to sup...

Mediated Series - Part 5: Published in 2005, Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live In It , became Bridget's bible for understanding the changing media landscape and how it is affecting our society and behavior. Now she sits down with author Thomas de Zengotita for a multi-part series discussing the book chapter by chapter.  In Part 5 Bridget and Thomas discuss identit...

Joel Stein (columnist, author & podcast host) joins Bridget for the first video edition of Walk-Ins Welcome! They sit down for a fun and wide-ranging conversation about their obsession with super yachts, the one-upsmanship of the super wealthy, why people in rural America know all about liberals yet liberals know nothing about them, Joel's propensity for smugness, and why he thinks our di...

Bari Weiss is a journalist ( New York Times , Wall Street Journal ) and author of How to Fight Antisemitism . She and Bridget have an in-depth conversation about how full personhood is not possible on the internet, faux outrage and what it's doing to us, the explosion of independent media, the dangers of exploring TikTok, and why the end of Trump's presidency means you're suddenly y...